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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Oddball Al Rosen cards top my list of needs for the Indians' third baseman. There are a handful of his cards that price themselves out of my collection because they're rare and rarely appear. Today's post features one such card I was able to land and snag using a smallish chunk of my tax return which made it an even sweeter pickup. Released with potato chips, pretzels, and other snack items, this Cleveland-area set is even harder to find with the tab intact: 1952 Num Num!

The card was slabbed as Authentic by the folks at SGC likely due to the fact -- as the seller noted in the eBay listing -- that the card is likely trimmed. Any trimming, of course, matters little to me as these Num Nums are not easy to find and Rosen isn't usually available when any do become available for the taking online. And of course when they can be found they are usually not found with the tab.

Here's the back which goes into great and intimate detail about Rosen's life. Included in the bio: Rosen's Jewish ancestry (just part of why I love collecting The Hebrew Hammer); that he was Florida State middleweight boxing champion; he was a goodwill ambassador for a brewery; and he was single at the time the card was produced (hey ladies!).

Perhaps the coolest part of this Num Num release is that if someone collected all 20 tabs they could send them to the Num Num Food company and receive a signed ball by an Indians' player in return. However, it was an Indians' player of the customer's choosing as they could insert the name of the player they wanted on the reverse of the tab, as seen on the scan of the card back.